Strange Occurrences on Red Mountain

We have lived in this small, little, rural town since July. It's a nice little town with nothing more than a Food Mart and convenience store with gas stations. And yes, there is a difference. The Food Mart is like a mini grocery store. You can get milk, eggs, spagetti sauce, even ground beef and vegetables. The convenience market is the usual type that has snacky type foods-chips, candies, sodas. There are also many churches(most of them Baptist, we afterall are entrenched in the Bible Belt), several hairdressers, a thrift shop, the Speedway Cafe(which I imagine you would hear forks drop if you walked in there unknown), Edward Jones Investments, and many, many farms of different varieties. A lot of horse farms, but also cattle and vegetables. We don't have a major grocery store, or Wal Mart for that matter (at least not yet). We have to drive about 20-30 minutes to engage in that kind of shopping.

Needless to say, it can be odd living in a small town. We have noticed strange occurrences unfolding. I will share two such occurrences. The first one is odd, yet explainable. The second one....well, I need help interpreting what happened.....

My husband is the subject of the first such strange occurrence that I will describe.

NC State University owns a bit of land up our way for their Forestry school. They have a network of walking trails that are open to the public and my husband takes a daily walk through these trails before meeting our daughter at the bus stop in the afternoon. He has explored most of them, and I have seen a few of them. Usually nothing notable happens during these jaunts, except for the occassional deer or snake siting.

Well, my unsuspecting husband was not prepared for what would ensue on this particular day. He usually carries a huge walking stick for the primary purpose of fending off wild life if he so happens to need to do so. He was never a Boy Scout, but he's always prepared. This day, he took a different trail that had not been explored yet. The trail eventually dead ended and he turned around to head back. Then, he heard dogs barking. The barking belonged to two hound dogs rounding the corner of the trail. I guess he stopped to figure out what to do next. However, the event was not over yet. Because around the corner came an entire pack of hound dogs barking and barking, eventually encircling him. He said he wasn't too worried because he could tell they were slightly afraid of him and didn't seem aggressive towards him. Yet here he is surrounded by a pack of barking hound dogs.

Well, the next thing he sees is two men on horseback dressed in complete fox hunt gear, scarlet coats and all. They call the dogs off and they take back off down the trail. My husband exhanges pleasantries with the fox hunters but his path is blocked by one of them as he tries to go along his merry way. He thought it strange, but soon understands why because just then an entire pack of about 10 more men on horseback in full fox hunt regalia come down the path. One asks him if he had seen any fox down the trail. He had not. So off they went following the dog. Another one of them commented to my husband: "I bet you didn't think you would be part of a fox hunt today."

Ok, the second such strange occurrence happened just this morning. I was waiting with my daughter at the bus stop. Usually we walk down there, but lately because of rain and cold we have been driving to the bus stop and waiting in the car. Well, today we were waiting in the car, as usual. I first must explain that we live in a very small cul de sac subdivision, with about 50 houses. There's the road that leads into our subdivision that dead ends. There's a small court off to the right of the main road and there's a side road to the left that caddy corners the court and dead ends. We live on this road.

I'm parked on our road facing the road out of the subdivision. I then noticed a silver sports car drive up the road from the entrance and turn onto the road I'm parked on. I also see another car, a purple Camaro, that must have followed the silver car. The purple car driver pulls onto the court and diagonally parks his car facing the main road. Silver Car Guy stops right next to my car. He's young, maybe 18 or so, and dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt. He is holding some kind of hand held device. Please forgive my ignorance of technical gadgetry but he's pushing buttons on this device. Is it a communication device, a GPS system? I get a little worried. Am I about to be carjacked? No silly, who would want my car? The Silver Car Guy doesn't really look at me.

Silver Car Guy then backs up and heads down the main road towards the dead end with his hazard lights flashing. The guy in the purple camaro then gets out of his car and stands next to his car, patiently waiting, arms crossed. He's older and kind of burly and rough looking, wearing a flannel shirt and smoking a cigarette. He holds his cigarette like tough guys in the movies. Not between the fingers like a "V", but between thumb and two forefingers.

Silver Car Guy eventually comes back, most likely realizing it's a dead end and there's no way out and away from the cigarette smoking Purple Camaro Guy. Silver Car Guy pulls back onto my road and heads down that way. Again, he will hit a dead end and find there's no escape. He finally comes back and realizes he's going to have to pass by Purple Camaro Guy. He attempts this manuever, but is stopped by purple Camaro Guy as he approaches the silver car. Silver Car Guy probably could have driven past him, but the Purple Camaro Guy kind of blocks his path, so he stops.

They exchange words and at this point I'm praying there will be no punches, or worse gunfire exchanged. I'm thinking this must be a road rage incident. I get my cell phone in hand ready to dial the Sheriff if this should happen. Well, Silver Car Guy eventually hands Purple Camaro Guy a newspaper, or at least it looks like a newspaper. It's wrapped in the yellow plastic newspaper delivery wrapper. Purple Camaro Guy takes the newspaper gets back in his car and just sits there. Silver Car Guy just sits there too. He opens his car door but doesn't get out. He just sits there.

At this point the bus finally comes and since we live on dead end streets, the bus usually backs up onto the court to turn around. However today Purple Camaro Guy is in the way. Silver Car Guy doesn't help matters parked where he is. Purple Camaro Guy backs up to give the bus more room and Silver Car Guy still just sits there. The bus finally pulls away. I'm still nervous about this incident, because I'm not quite sure what just went down. I turn around and drive back to my house after my daughter is safely on the bus and on her way to school. I call my husband to get his advice on what I should do. Ignore and go to work, or should I call the authorities? He advised I check to see if they're still there, so I drive back but by that time they are both gone. So, now I'm left wondering what just transpired. I have several possible scenarios worked out in my mind.

1- Silver Car Guy is actually a newspaper delivery boy. Instead of delivering papers on his bike, he uses his silver sport car. And maybe Purple Camaro Guy is like Mr.Wilson to Silver Car Guy's Dennis the Menace. Purple Camaro guy has gotten tired of his newspaper being thrown on the roof, or in the bushes, or in the mud puddle and today was the final straw as he chased him down and demanded the newspaper boy provide him with a clean and accessible copy of the daily newspaper.

2-Silver Car Guy is actually a newspaper thief, and whose thieving days have finally caught up with him. Purple Camaro Guy is the newspaper thief's victim. Silver Car Guy (or Newspaper Thief in this scenario) didn't count on Purple Camaro Guy staking out his driveway early in this morning. He didn 't bargain for his victim to be lying in wait for the thief too strke, because today he is going to chase that mother fucker down and recover his stolen reading material.

3-Or was is a drug deal, gone bad? That really wasn't a newspaper. It was really a kilo of cocaine wrapped to look like a newspaper. Purple Camaro Guy wanted his stash back. While this one is sensational, it isn't as much fun as the other two possibilities.

Hmmm.....strange occurrences.

Does anyone else have a better interpretation of this event?